Teaching conventions in isolation is ineffective at best, because students need opportunities to apply their knowledge of conventions to their writing. Even daily oral language activities are a waste of time for students without procedural knowledge of how and when to use conventions in writing. Consequently, the most effective way to teach conventions is to integrate instruction directly into the writing process.

Attention to conventions too early in the writing process, however, can interfere with both students' development of automaticity. Writers need the ability to automatically juggle the many physical and cognitive aspects of writing — letter formation, spelling, word order, grammar, vocabulary, and ideas — without consciously thinking about them. The only way to develop this automaticity in writing is to practice, practice, practice.